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Robert E. Lee was a brilliant general, but he "commanded a vast army that, had it won, would have secured the independence of a nation dedicated to the proposition that white people could own black people and sell them off, husband from wife, child from parent, as the owner saw fit," writes Richard Cohen in the Washington Post. Yet this man has become legend, with streets and schools named after him all across the South. It's time to remember who Lee truly was—someone "loyal to slavery and disloyal to his country"—and recognize that we cannot admire such a man.

Lee owned slaves and fought to keep them, and he didn't do it because of "crushing social and political pressure" to choose state over country. No, many of Lee's own family members remained loyal to the Union, notes Cohen; he compares Lee to Germany's Gen. Rommel, who fought exceptionally well, but on behalf of Hitler. Lee "deserves no honor—no college, no highway, no high school. In the awful war (620,000 dead) that began 150 years ago this month, he fought on the wrong side for the wrong cause. It’s time for Virginia and the South to honor the ones who were right." Click to read the entire column.

It says something extraordinary about the United States that, after the Civil War ended, the Union troops didn't simply arrest and hang every Confederate military and civilian leader they could find. In any other country, all vestiges of the defeated rebellion would be ruthlessly suppressed, with any participant not executed sent to "re-education camps." Even in Europe, it's a crime to display swastikas and other emblems of Nazism. Yet in America, we welcomed the rebel states back into the fold, and today the Stars and Bars fly over the domes of state capitols, and re-enactors dress up as Confederate soldiers.

LetsBeReal

Apr 26, 2011 10:45 PM CDT

Yeah, but he was a tactical genius. He was once out numbered so he had his men march in circles to kick up dust and make it seem like he had an entire army. The opposing forces retreated and he essentially won a battle that he should have lost.

Realfacts

Apr 26, 2011 8:34 PM CDT

Ignorance is bliss to uninformed..please don't poke fun at Robert E. Lee unless you know all the truth without a biased and racist viewpoint. Did you know Mr.Cohen that Lee wrote a letter to his wife stating that slavery is a moral and political evil..maybe you do know this but chose to ignore the facts. Mr. Cohen, have you ever heard of the widow C. Richards and her son P.C. Richards, who owned 152 slaves. OMG, and they were black owners. And don't forget was Antoine Dubuclet, who owned 100 slaves, another black owner of slaves. And of course in 1860 William Ellison was South Carolina's largest Negro slave owner, owning more slaves than 99 percent of the Souths slaveholders.. Ellison's major source of income derived from being a "slave breeder.", an outlawed practice. The Ellison family actively supported the Confederacy throughout the war, some even fighting for the Confederacy..to keep their right to own slaves. Come on now Mr. Cohen, surely you must have come across these gems of information while researching your opinion on General Lee. Take the veil of hypocrisy off your head and tell the whole truth once in awhile.